HI 19: Pit of Doom
Grey & Brady introduce themselves after 18 episodes, working in public on the Internet, humblebragging revisited, a list of words that we mostly can't say on the podcast, the sacred space of calendars and 8 ways robots will take your job. Show Notes * CGP Grey * Brady Haran * Brady and Professor Poliakoff * H.I. #18: Monkey Copyright * Humblebrag * Holland vs The Netherlands * Humans Need Not Apply * The Great Decoupling of the US Economy * Genetic programming * Artificial Neural Networks * Also: you still have homework. Blame Grey. Summary be added Transcript Brady: Are we ready to rock 'n' roll? H.I. Brady: So, I remember when we, uh, were about to record the first episode of series one. Grey: Mhm. Brady: '''I said to you, should we, like, introduce ourselves and just like say who we are, you know, in case people... have no idea who we are, which is incredibly likely. '''Grey: Mhm. Brady: '''Um... and you, you said no, and you made a very compelling case, for not introducing ourselves in episode 1. '''Grey: Mhm. Brady: '''So we didn't. '''Grey: Mhm. Brady: '''And now, in episode 19, you're saying, we should introduce ourselves. '''Grey: I am, I am! But I have a reason for that. Which is, today we have been featured on the iTunes store so, there is a greater likelihood that there are people who are listening to this episode, as their first episode, who really have no idea who we are; who just clicked on a gray "HI" button at the top of iTunes and are listening to the first time. Hello, welcome if that's you. Brady: Hello! Grey: So I think that this is a good chance to maybe do a little bit of introduction, I guess? How would you describe your job to people? What is it that you do, Brady? Brady: No, no, I'm not falling for that. When you said that we would have to introduce ourselves I specifically said, that you have to go first. Grey: Laugh I was trying to cut you off there. Brady: No, no, no, no... Grey: I was trying to get rid of whatever your plan is. Brady: No, no, no, no... there is no plan. There is just... I just don't want to just sit and either talk about myself for like 25 minutes Grey: Uhuh. Brady: then have you say, "I'm Grey and I make YouTube videos." Grey: Uhuh. Brady: Or I don't want to talk about myself for like 8 seconds and then have you talk for 3 hours about, you know, what your childhood was like. Grey: Laugh Brady: So I want you to set the tone, so I know what to do. Grey: Okay, okay, alright... Brady: Tell me, who are you. Do you come here often? Grey: Yes I do come to this corner of the internet quite often. I am CGP Grey and I guess, the most... concise way to describe what I do, now, for a living, is that I make... informative YouTube videos that, people watch. I guess that's the way I would describe what I do but I always find it a little bit... strange trying to describe... what it is... that I do. And I find it very awkward, in some social situations sometimes. That's kind of why I actually want to know, how do you handle this situation. Brady: Um... Grey: What is it that you do? Describe, describe your job to me now. Like I'm a person who doesn't know you, at all. Brady: If it's a stranger, like someone cutting my hair or something, and they ask what I do I usually say, "I make YouTube videos." Because everyone knows what YouTube is, and then, if they ask "Oh what kind of YouTube videos?" I say, "Uh... kind of sciencey educational ones. Sometimes they're about maths or chemistry and stuff, sometimes... Grey: Mhm. Brady: ...they're just about... cool stuff." Grey: Mhm. Brady: And then, I dunno... I kind of see where it goes from there. But I just say I make YouTube videos, and people don't really care what other people do... people just wanna talk about themselves... so... Grey: Laugh Brady: ...so I just give them the bare minimum, and if they really care, they can ask more questions. And then, you know, like anyone I'll talk about myself forever if they want me to. Grey: Hmm... Brady: I remember I was um, going through US customs, not that long ago. And... I like going through US customs because they always like, immigration I should say, because they always ask you like, lots of questions about yourself... Grey: Mhm. Brady: ...'cause like, they have to. And it's really nice, like, you know they're like, "What do you do?" "Oh I make YouTube videos." "Oh what kind of videos?" and they ask like, where you've been and what you're doing in the country and they're like, they seem really interested. Grey: Yeah but they're not like- Brady: And then- Grey: They're not like, your buddies. Laugh Brady: It feels like that sometimes. And then it all ends very abruptly they're like, "Okay." And they just hand your passport back and, shoo you away. But recently I was going through, and this guy was like, "What do you do?" "Oh I make YouTube videos." Grey: Mhm. Brady: And then he was like, "Is it hard putting like, videos on YouTube?", and I'm like "No, no, it's pretty easy." And then, he started asking me all these technical questions and then he asked me about, like, GoPro cameras and it turns out he was really into like, uh, kayaking. Grey: Mhm. Brady: And then he got his iPhone out! This is at the desk at immigration, he got his iPhone out! Grey: Laugh Brady: And he started showing me all his kayaking videos and asked me for like, tips on how he was filming them, and what he should do to put them on YouTube. And like... we were like buddies by the end of that. I'm sure the people behind in the queue were... pretty cheesed off, but, I must have been there for a good 5, 10 minutes just watching videos on his iPhone. Grey: This... again, we are so different. I would find that, both... incredibly awkward... and slightly terrifying. Brady: Laugh Grey: Like, I always want to get through that customs gate as fast as possible. "Let me on the other side of this gate." The only... like when I'm on the airplane side, I'm not on the "you're in the country" side, I feel like, "There's only one good outcome here, which is walking through the gate, and there are many ways this can go wrong..." Brady: Laugh Grey: ...if the customs guy doesn't like you... or if they're just you know, they're bored and they wanna send you to the special room, right? For interrogation... Brady: Laugh Grey: I don't like the situation at all. And if the guy was talking to me for a very long time, I would just assume that he was stalling, while the big beefy guys with guns are gonna come out and take me away to some other place. That's what I always do. Brady: To the.. to the special room? Grey: That's exactly it! No one's ever stopped me to show kayaking videos on their phone. These people are never chit-chatty. The only thing I can assume is they're just stalling. So I would be... I would be very nervous. I would be very sweaty, and twitchy, at a point like that. And then of course they WOULD feel the need to interrogate me, because... Brady:'' This is why I love talking to you. Because I always think I'm a really paranoid worrying person. And then I talk to you, and then I realize that I'm pretty chilled. '''Grey': I don't... But I don't think that is paranoid and worrying. I think that is the appropriate response to the situation of going through customs. Many bad things, and only one good thing, can come out in that situation. Brady: The only... the only time I was a little bit worried, going into the US, was not that long ago. I made a video about how, like, mathematically, how the NSA was cracking into people's emails. It was just about, like, the mathematics behind it. There was no political agenda, it was just a geeky video. But that was the first time it occurred to me, maybe making that video has put my name on some watch list, and next time I go to the counter, they're just gonna say, "No. No. We don't want troublemakers like you here." You're... like... you know... you're not patriotic or anything, and then we're gonna... But nothing happened. Getting back to what you do, so when you say, "I make these informative videos," where does the conversation usually go from there? Grey: Well, I'm realizing that I might be taking the wrong strategy here. Because, I, in person, don't really like to talk about what I do. I feel like I would much rather move past this part of the conversation. And maybe it is, it's just like the customs situation. Maybe people can sense that. Because it seems to me that people are always very interested in what I do. And I end up trying to give vague answers, or answers that are sort of true, but not exactly true, and then trying to move the conversation right along. But then people are much more interested. The way I would actually describe it, right now, I make informative YouTube videos for a living. That's kind of what I do. Brady: That makes it sound like you make, like, um, like safety videos, like what should you do in an earthquake, or how... Grey: Laugh Brady: ...how should you brush your teeth, and things like that. And I... like... I don't wanna big you up or anything, but I think your videos are a bit better than that. Grey: They are a bit better than that maybe.... but less... helpful than that? I would say my videos are definitely less helpful than that. I'm not conveying any useful advice. I guess usually my videos are about... I don't know, geography, I guess, is a large part of what my videos are about. But they're not on any particular set topic. They're just sort of explaining something that I think is interesting, and that I hope that other people will think are interesting.. Brady: I would.... I mean, you couldn't do this, because it would sound a bit too much like bragging. But if I was you, if I was describing what you do, I would probably add a few words to your description. I would say "Oh, Grey, he makes, like, like quirky YouTube videos, about... you know... trivial but fun things." You need to get words like "quirky" and "trivia" in there, to... to make it sound less like something that's worthy, or something that you have to watch at a workshop at your new job. Grey: Yeah, I guess. It's, it's funny, as we're doing this, this little section right now, I'm realizing I've never been in a situation where I really want to "big up" what I do. I haven't really given any public presentations or anything like that about what I'm doing. So I haven't needed to write a formal interview. Like I said, most of the time I find myself at like, social gatherings, just trying to avoid the issue. Which, as you mentioned, people like to talk about themselves. And my usual trick for getting around this... in a conversation with somebody else, go for as long as you possibly can, without asking the other person what it is they do. And... it's surprisingly hard to do this. But, I use this to my advantage, in social situations, where I don't really want to talk about my job... and so, I will refuse to ask what the other person does for a living, forcing them to make the first move. So they say, "Oh, what do you do for a living?" And then I can sort of stumble through a terrible explanation, that doesn't hopefully sound very interesting, and then immediately end with, "And what do you do for a living?" And hopefully, that avoids any follow-up questions. And often, that works. Brady: Why do you not want to tell people what you do? You're... You do a good thing. And you're successful at it. Grey: It's... it's strange working on the internet. Like, I feel like I'm a relatively private person. And then, when you do something that is on the Internet, in public, that everyone can see, it sometimes leads to strange situations. So I had a couple of times when I was starting in my YouTube career, and I was much more up-front about, "Oh, what do you do?" "Oh, I make YouTube videos for a living." There were a couple of, "Well let's gather everybody around the computer! And watch your YouTube videos right now!" Brady: Yeah, that could be awkward. Grey: And that I find, just, horrifyingly awkward. I... I dodged a bullet at a family reunion once, with that. There was a, "Let's gather all of these people, who you don't know anything about yet, you've just walked in the door." But there are going to be like thirty people who want to watch what you do for a living. On the screen. And we're all going to then talk abou- like it's so uncomfortable, something like that. That's... that's one of the reasons I've uh... toned down, necessarily, talking about what I do, with people that I don't know. It's like, I don't want this to be a "Oh really? Tell me your website! Let me look at your work life!" It's very very strange I think, being a... working on the Internet where everybody can see what you do. It feels strange sometimes. So... that's kind of why I avoid it. But... don't you have that sometimes, where people ask to see your YouTube videos? Brady: No... I mean, by then I've probably already shown them about 5 videos of my greyhound so... they're probably sick of watching videos by then Grey: Yeah... See, I think maybe I should try adopting your strategy, which is to... sound really into my own job and then people won't want to hear about it at all. Brady: L''augh'' Grey: Yeah, if you go "Oh let me show you some of my videos!" people will be like "Oh wait let me get a refill on my drink first..." right and wander off to the kitchen, and then they won't want to see it at all. Maybe that's a better strategy, I might want to try that. Brady: I have got one photo on my phone that I have like in a folder that I can get to quickly because it comes in really handy when... when you have to talk about your work 'cause... the problem is your work does sound, you know... your work can sound a bit boring and geeky when you start talking about science and... "oh yeah I make things about... chemicals and... mathematics and that." So... Grey: You make videos with explosions! Brady: Yeah that's true. But the picture I keep on my phone is when we went and filmed inside the Bank of England Gold Bullion Vault... and... the professor and I are standing in front of like all the billions and billions of uh, pounds worth of gold. So I say "Oh yeah we do- I do videos like about the elements and chemistry and things" and people are like, "Oh... like how can you make that interesting?", and then I like pull out the picture and go, "Look at this!" Grey: L''augh'' Brady: "Tell me that's not interesting!" Grey: You've got it all cued up on your phone, you're ready to just... flash it right in their face. Brady: I wasn't saying I had it- I wouldn't say I have it cued up... but... and it's only if the conversation gets to a certain level of uh, interrogation that I pull out the photo in my defense but... I certainly wouldn't show someone one of my videos at a party I think that would be... a bit pretty dull for them. But... I find the photo handy. Grey: One of the other things is that... It's weird running a podcast, because on this podcast, one of the things that we often talk about is our work lives. And so I do have this Brady: Grey: Brady: Grey: Brady: Grey: section here Brady: Um, let's talk about your video, though, cuz it was really interesting. It was excellent. As always, it's been hugely successful, deservedly so. Congratulations. Um... Grey: Thanks. Brady: But, uh, I was hoping we'd talk some more about it. I mean, it's 15 minutes long, though! I mean, you covered most of the bases, I'd imagine. But, there are probably a few things... I'm sure I'll have a few questions about it. I'd like to point out a few mistakes you made. And I'm sure there's lots of things you'd like to say about it. But, for those who haven't seen it, what was this video about? Grey: This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and has been on my mind... for... I was trying to place when this started, and I, I can actually put it pretty consistently at about a decade ago, when I was in college and came across a few things. And... The topic of the video is basically about... to what extent is automation and computer technology going to replace the need for human labor in the economy. That is the broadest way to put it. Or, in a more simple way, you can say "Robots! Are they gonna take your jobs?" That's, uh, that's kind of the more direct version of what the video is about. in progress Category:Episodes